How 5 universities tried to handle COVID-19 on campus

Fall semester was the start of a big experiment

At the University of Colorado Boulder, students pick up campus maps and pandemic protocols on August 18. Each school that opened for the fall semester had its own patchwork of safety measures in place to try to keep students and staff safe from COVID-19.(MARK MAKELA/GETTY IMAGES)

One year into the COVID-19 pandemic, we know the SARS-CoV-2 infection spreads effectively through enormous indoor social occasions and common living spaces. An individual can become contaminated, spread the infection to companions, family, instructors or colleagues, and afterward begin displaying indications a few days after the fact — or never give any indications of disease.

With these sorts of dangers, a school grounds seems like one of the more risky spots to invest energy. Truth be told, U.S. provinces with enormous schools or colleges that offered face to face guidance the previous fall saw a 56 percent ascend in COVID-19 cases in the three weeks after classes started contrasted and the three weeks prior. Areas with huge schools that offered just far off learning saw a drop in instances of right around 18%, specialists from the U.S. Communities for Disease Control and Prevention covered January 8 in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Colleges that opened their grounds in August and September confronted an unknown, months-long investigation in contamination control. They had no manual, no surefire approach to hold understudies and staff back from becoming ill.

Science News investigated five colleges that opened in the fall. Each school cobbled together some sort of testing at different frequencies combined with lopsided principles about wearing covers and public social events.

For testing, all five schools used polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, tests, which are the gold standard for diagnosing COVID-19. Results can take days, however, when demand for tests is high (SN Online: 8/31/20). One school also used a test called loop-mediated isothermal amplification, or LAMP, which, like PCR, measures viral DNA to identify infections. LAMP is less sensitive than PCR, but results come in much more quickly since there’s no need to send samples to a laboratory.

Antigen tests, which detect proteins from the virus and also give rapid results, helped one school move students quickly into quarantine, even though those tests have a higher rate of false-negative results. One school additionally set up wastewater sampling at dorms to pick up early signs of outbreaks.

Five experiences

As students arrived on campuses for the fall semester, many universities experienced COVID-19 outbreaks, as did all but one of the five schools profiled here. Some experienced late-semester peaks from Halloween parties or from a surge in a nearby city.

“Colleges are high risk, but also exactly where innovation can happen,” says Pardis Sabeti, a computational geneticist at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, which worked with more than 100 colleges and universities on their COVID-19 mitigation strategies.

One example of such innovation, she says, is universal student use of phone-based apps for symptom monitoring and contact tracing. Student engagement and leadership was also key to successful outbreak control, Sabeti says. Several universities recruited students as health ambassadors to promote safe behavior; at one school, a student panel meted out punishments to their peers who broke the rules.

Four of the five schools profiled here faced at least one outbreak during the fall, but none sent students home before Thanksgiving break. As spring semester gets under way, and universities bring even more students back to campus, the experiment continues.

“Most schools have had very unsuccessful [fall] semesters,” Sabeti says. To do a better job in the spring, she suggests that schools double down on public health measures and civic engagement with both students and broader communities. At the schools profiled here, student involvement seemed to be an important part of control efforts. Several of the schools are adding new strategies as case totals have been climbing around the country.

Pick a different handful of universities and you’ll probably find a different mix of approaches and outcomes. Maybe by the end of spring semester, a book of best practices for keeping colleges safe during a pandemic can be written.

University of Wisconsin–Madison

Key stats

• Students: 6,400 in dorms; 31,650 enrolled
• Testing: Mandatory, weekly PCR testing for students and staff in university housing; random sampling of faculty, staff and students living off campus who opt in to testing
• Safety measures: Masks required indoors and outdoors; contact tracing; event restrictions following CDC guidelines
• Spring semester plans: Undergrads tested twice a week; faculty and staff need a negative test within eight days of coming to campus; mandatory symptom monitoring and contact tracing via a phone app for all students in the Madison area; up-to-date testing required for building access

In September, Wisconsin had one of the greatest per capita paces of COVID-19 in the country. The University of Wisconsin–Madison was at the focal point of concern: Hundreds of understudies tried positive when grounds opened in late August. A few understudies nearby accumulated in enormous gatherings without veils in spite of college limitations, as indicated by the Badger Herald, an understudy paper. At the pinnacle of the episode toward the beginning of September, 911 understudies and staff tried positive in a solitary week.

The college collaborated with a nearby biotechnology organization that had built up a PCR COVID-19 test. As an examination college, UW–Madison had the framework to rapidly break down test tests nearby.

The underlying arrangement had been to test all understudies living in home lobbies all other weeks, says Jake Baggott, partner bad habit chancellor and leader overseer of University Health Services. Yet, when cases spiked in September, the school moved to week after week testing.

"We inspected every home lobby, and each floor of every home corridor, consistently," Baggott says. An amazed timetable was set dependent on living courses of action: If one understudy was tried on a Monday, the flat mate was tried Tuesday, the nearby neighbor tried Wednesday, etc. This amazing assisted chairmen with distinguishing episode destinations all the more rapidly, as new information were accessible every day at a hyperlocal level.

Understudies who tried positive were placed into fourteen day detachment and anybody known to be presented to a contaminated individual or showing manifestations went into isolate. All trivial in­person action was suspended for students for about fourteen days, beginning on September 7. On September 20, a record 432 understudies were in confinement and 100 were in isolate.

By late September, new every day cases had dipped under 20, and test inspiration — the portion of tests returning positive outcomes — stayed under 5%, an edge suggested by the World Health Organization before a local area should consider resuming. The college utilized comparative strategies to take action against a more modest episode that started in late October.

North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Greensboro

Key stats

• Students: 8,000 living on or near campus
• Testing: PCR testing alone until September 28, when antigen testing was added; testing offered to symptomatic students, or during a spike in cases, or for those who request a test
• Safety measures: Masks required indoors; contact tracing; limited capacity and social distancing in dining halls; size restrictions for nonclass gatherings; updated HVAC systems
• Spring semester plans: Wastewater testing; students tested before returning to campus; testing incentives, such as free T-shirts

required inside; contact following; restricted limit and social separating in feasting corridors; size limitations for nonclass get-togethers; refreshed HVAC frameworks

Spring semester plans: Wastewater testing; understudies tried prior to getting back to grounds; testing motivators, for example, free T-shirts

At the point when grounds previously resumed, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, NC A&T for short, had the ability to test just indicative understudies. What's more, turnaround was moderate: Results took five to six days, here and there longer.

The COVID-19 system moved in late September, when the school got antigen tests through a U.S. Division of Health and Human Services award for testing at verifiably Black schools and colleges. The compromise for the antigen test's brisk outcomes is a higher probability of bogus negatives (upwards of 1 out of 5 in asymptomatic individuals). Yet, for managers, the speed was great.

"We chose to test wherever we could," says Robert Doolittle, clinical head of the Student Health Center — at the wellbeing place and spring up destinations around grounds.

At the point when a flare-up began after a Halloween party, which abused grounds manages, the college confined face to face mingling and tried around 1,000 understudies in seven days with both antigen and PCR tests. Wellbeing focus staff instructed understudies about how to decipher the aftereffects of each test type: antigen test results are primer and may give bogus negatives, while PCR test results are more authoritative. The PCR testing distinguished 61 cases in understudies who had negative antigen results, however the fast tests actually permitted the school to send 160 understudies into prompt confinement.

Youngsters who worked at the Student Health Center were instrumental to the testing exertion, says Yolanda Nicholson, head of wellbeing training and wellbeing. The understudies ran online media crusades, made instructive recordings and remained outside the middle to promote testing hours. Nicholson and understudy staff supported the individuals who came in for testing to educate their companions concerning the experience. A few understudies went live on Instagram while they got tried, showing their companions what the experience resembled.

While upperclassmen reprimanded some rookies for social occasion without veils in August, as indicated in the understudy paper, the A&T Register, understudies, generally, Nicholson says, "paid attention to it."

In an infomercial Nicholson imparted to Science News, understudies communicated their purposes behind getting tried: "for my family, for my friends and family, for us." NC A&T understudies comprehend that U.S. Dark occupants have been hit hard by the pandemic, Nicholson says. Interest for testing rose close to the furthest limit of the semester, as understudies were quick to try not to bring the infection home to their families.

University of Washington, Seattle

Key stats

• Students: 1,000 living on or near campus during summer quarter; 6,200 during fall quarter (typical enrollment is 30,000)
• Testing: Weekly targeted random sampling with PCR tests
• Safety measures: Masks required indoors and outdoors; contact tracing; event restrictions varied
• Spring semester plans: Students must get tested before returning to campus

Organization and sorority houses — where understudies reside and assemble for parties — became wellsprings of COVID-19 episodes at numerous schools. The University of Washington encountered a late spring organization episode and applied exercises learned.

"It was late June, I was in the vehicle, and I get a call from a [fraternity] section president that he has three individuals living in his office that are indicative," says Erik Johnson, Interfraternity Council president at that point. "We went into crisis lockdown mode."

Every one of the 25 brotherhood houses went into isolate that very day. Inside 48 hours, a testing site was set up to test each inhabitant.

Johnson depicts a significant collaboration: The college set up testing; the province general wellbeing division, which had reacted to the originally known U.S. Coronavirus episode, taken care of contact following; and crew authority conveyed the significance of isolates and other security rules. The late spring flare-up was handled in around fourteen days, with the last instance of the episode recognized on August 8.

Both the college and understudy pioneers utilized that late spring experience to plan for the fall. Genevieve Pritchard, 2020 leader of the UW Panhellenic Association, which manages sororities, gotten week after week gatherings together with groups from the nearby general wellbeing division and the college's natural wellbeing and security office before sorority houses opened. Understudies could go to online courses to pose inquiries.

At the point when a flare-up hit sororities toward the beginning of fall quarter, contaminated understudies were immediately recognized and segregated. The college detailed 200 new cases the week finishing October 4, 76 new cases the following week and 42 new cases the week after that. Just about a fifth of the typical understudy populace had come to grounds.

Colorado Mesa University, Grand Junction

Key stats

• Students: 10,000 living on or near campus
• Testing: Weekly random sampling LAMP tests; PCR tests confirm positive LAMP results
• Safety measures: Students must complete five-module COVID-19 course before arriving; masks required indoors; wastewater testing of dorms; mandatory symptom monitoring, COVID-19 test tracking and international travel reporting; social distancing and enforced podding; dashboard shows occupancy of high-traffic campus areas; temperature checks at building entrances
• Spring semester plans: Improved monitoring app with contact tracing

As a school situated a long way from huge testing research facilities, Colorado Mesa University didn't approach 24-hour results for PCR tests. So the school depended on other screening techniques and conscious local area working to bring its students — a large number of whom are original, low-pay understudies — back to grounds.

The school utilized a "kitchen-sink approach" to COVID-19 reconnaissance, says Eric Parrie, CEO of COVIDCheck Colorado. Understudies needed to test negative prior to getting back to grounds, and once they showed up, they took an interest in irregular testing with LAMP fast tests, PCR tests for anybody known to have been presented to the infection and wastewater inspecting of home corridors.

John Marshall, VP for Student Services, and Amy Bronson, program head of the college's Physician Assistant Program, held week after week COVID-19 virtual city centers beginning in the spring. Understudy pioneers energized wellbeing among their friends through web-based media missions like the school's "CMU is back" music video.

With a gesture to the Maverick, the college mascot, understudies were gathered into little cases called "mavilies." Set up dependent on lodging and exercises, units could be four understudies in a loft or 20 understudies in a games group. Mavilies were permitted to eat together, assemble nearer than six feet out in the open spaces and eliminate covers in their mutual living regions. The methodology permitted sports groups to keep working on, as indicated by the understudy paper, the Criterion.

The college confronted a November flare-up, which Marshall and Bronson trait to local area spread in Grand Junction, where numerous college understudies work. Grounds testing and contact following sloped up during this time. Understudies were sent home for Thanksgiving, and the school completed its semester with about fourteen days of distant classes and tests — holding fast to the school’s unique arrangement for the fall.

Rice University, Houston

Key stats

• Students: 3,000 living on or near campus
• Testing: Weekly PCR testing for undergrads in dorms or who attend in-person classes; intermittent testing for staff, faculty and grad students every two to three weeks
• Safety measures: Masks and social distancing required indoors and outdoors; contact tracing (priority is to first reach those exposed to more contagious students, based on viral load on PCR test); international travel logged in a Rice registry
• Spring semester plans: Due to high case numbers in Houston, all classes online and campus closed to students until February 15; LAMP testing surveillance added to detect superspreader events

A foundation of Rice University’s reopening plan was weekly COVID-19 testing for undergraduates, says Yousif Shamoo, vice provost for research. After seeing Texas residents wait days for test results in the summer, the school lined up two Houston-based testing partners, Baylor Genetics and Houston Methodist Hospital, for 24-hour turnaround on test results.

Starting in the summer, student leaders helped the university prepare educational materials on COVID-19 and set up a system to discipline those who broke the rules and reward those who followed the rules, says Emily Garza, director of Student Judicial Programs.

Inspired by Rice’s student-run Honor Council, the COVID-19 Community Court includes representatives from all 11 residential colleges who are selected by student leadership and trained by student Judicial Programs. Students on the court try their peers who break COVID-19 protocols on campus; students, staff and community members can report misconduct through an online portal.

The court has been criticized as an outlet for students to police each other. But Shamoo sees it as a means for education, reminding students that their actions have consequences.

As punishment for being caught without a mask, for example: “We’re gonna make you write a three-page essay on whether you think masks are good ideas or not,” he says. Students wrote their essays after watching videos and reading articles about public health and safety concerns around COVID-19. Another common penalty was community service hours, in which students created and posted flyers on campus buildings about COVID-19 precautions.

During the fall semester, about 130 student violations were reported, half on campus and half off campus. The university’s staff judicial office investigated the off-campus violations.

Rice also trained over 100 student health ambassadors to serve as resources for their peers who have questions about COVID-19 but don’t want to ask administrators. Case numbers remained low at Rice, with no single day seeing more than six reported cases. Over 75,000 tests were conducted during the fall semester and only 135 cases were confirmed.